Incredible photos show San Francisco's 'startup district' before the tech industry moved in

A former warehouse and light industrial district, South of Market is San Francisco's biggest tech hub. It's not uncommon to watch entrepreneurs and Uber cars whiz by tent cities, or look out at the tallest man-made structures west of the Mississippi River rising over dilapidated auto body shops.

South of Market, often referred to as SoMa, is a neighborhood in flux. It always has been.

Photographer Janet Delaney arrived in the summer of 1978 with her massive, old-fashioned view camera in tow. At the time, the financial sector put a squeeze on small businesses and affordable housing to make room for the Moscone Center, the city's largest convention hall, which has hosted Apple, Google, and Microsoft special events over the years.

Delaney, a graduate student of photography then, wanted to capture the working class communities that made up SoMa, before they disappeared.

Delaney shared some of her images with Business Insider. You can find more on her website.

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When Janey Delaney arrived in San Francisco's SoMa District in the late '70s, her rent cost $250 a month. Neighbors knew each other by name. But change came quickly.

Delaney has since returned to the neighborhood for a series called "SoMa Now." It focuses on the deepening gap between the wealthy and the poor.

"South of Market," 2nd at Market Street, 1986
Janet Delaney

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She says the scale of development happening in SoMa now makes what she witnessed in the '70s ad '80s look terribly small. The neighborhood will be home to the tallest commercial and residential towers west of Chicago next year.